no sweet dream
by in perpetuum
Summary: Eddie doesn't like the dark, thrives in summer and sunshine and places where things can't hide, but he came here. He dreamt of a killer clown, woke up, and thought, I should go to Richie's. I should get on my bike and ride to Richie's. In the dark. That I don't like. I should go to Richie's.


_This is apparently my newest obsession, so I had to write something before I combusted. I probably got the characterizations all wrong, but it's fine, I'm fine. I'll work on it. I also don't know anything about the book and am just going off the movies. I also have no idea what actually happens to them re: memory loss, so just pretend that while It is weak they don't really remember that summer and as he grows stronger (which he does in this, just a bit), he's able to reach out to them when they're not expecting it, but it doesn't work like it used to. I hope that makes sense._

* * *

**_no sweet dream_**

If it were anyone else, Richie would slam the door in their face.

Actually, that's wrong. Richie would slam the door in _anyone's _face—it's three-fucking-thirty in the morning—most of all Eddie's, just because it's Eddie. He'd open it right back up, though, _because it's Eddie_, and so he doesn't go through the motions. It's a waste.

He yawns, reaches up to scratch at his scalp. His curls are tangled, he notices; his fingers get caught between them. He doesn't care.

"Spaghetti," he says. "Do you know what time it is?"

Eddie fidgets, wringing his fingers like he's, Richie doesn't know, twelve again, curling into himself, making himself smaller than he's been in a while. He's bigger than whatever he is right now, has _been_ bigger, but he's always taken into consideration the opinions of those around him (read: his fucking mother, the various bullies at school Richie can't intimidate) and lets it fester. For someone so loud and callous, with his own opinions, he has an easy time letting everyone else decide who he is.

(Richie thought he'd grown out of that, the same way he'd grown out of that fanny pack.)

It's too late and he's too tired to make a joke, to turn this into a bit, into something he can poke fun at. He can't summon any sort of voices, staring at Eddie on his front porch at three-thirty in the morning. Eddie's not even in a freaking jacket, just a worn-out t-shirt, twenty seconds away from getting pneumonia or something Mrs. K will pass off as pneumonia, and pajama pants that are too long in the leg, pooling around his ankles. Pajama pants that Richie is certain—that are _his—_

He coughs around the fondness in his throat, threatening to choke him. Leans his hip against the doorframe. Checks Eddie for any sign of injury, distress, unease. He doesn't see any, but he knows from experience a lot of the things that hurt Eddie are in his head.

"Eds?" he presses, because he knows he hates that. Knows he'll snap, _Don't call me that! You know I hate it! _

He doesn't, merely peers at him. Scrutinizing.

The lack of fight leaves Richie uncomfortable, a pit in his stomach. He wants to taste the spice of argument on his tongue, wants to counteract the warmth blooming in his sternum with either of them calling the other shitty names. Wants the atmosphere to be crappy jokes and the sharp fire of anger and witty quips, conversation that's worth less than the money he's got tucked away in his sock drawer. Anything to get rid of this... this—it's like a flower is fucking blooming, like spring has arrived after a long, brutal winter, thawing ice and snow, frozen around his rib cage.

"If you're gonna steal my pajamas, maybe steal ones that fit you," he manages instead.

He wrinkles his nose, Richie does. It doesn't sound right coming out of his mouth, the words—there isn't enough bite. And there should be, because Richie is all bite, or so he likes to think.

"You're seven goddamn feet tall," Eddie says back, _says finally_. "You got pajamas from when you were ten lying around?"

"Still wouldn't fit you," says Richie. "You're a little pipsqueak." He leans back, one hand gripping the doorframe, the other holding his index finger and his thumb out, measuring Eddie like he's the Eiffel Tower or some shit. "When's the last time you grew? Fifth grade? How tall even are you?"

"Tall enough to break your nose," Eddie retorts.

Richie makes a face and lifts his hands, palms out, like he's giving up. "Don't think so," he says, "you may need a few more inches."

Eddie's got half a spark in his eye, the kind that Richie loves to coax out, gentle like it's a wild animal until it realizes Richie fucking sucks and then it's all hissing and scratching and fighting back. It dies out, though, snuffed like a flame, and he shoves his hand, which he's balled up into a fist, into his pocket. Richie watches it tremble before it slips beneath the fabric, all intentions of punching Richie a mere farce, a mask Eddie's hidden behind this time. He means to stop looking, to let Eddie think he's fooled him—he hasn't mentioned why he's here yet—but his gaze lingers, falls to where he's tied his pants, tight to fit him, tight enough to stay up as he walks, or bikes, or whatever he did to get here, and notices how low they're slung on his hips. Notices a lot more than that, actually, because he's—he's—_looking—_

And Richie clears his throat, looks up at Eddie's face, fervently ignores the thoughts in his head, the memories of dreams he's woken from, sweaty and sticky; the fantasies he's had to reel himself out of while looking out the window in Math, tucked in the back of the class, one leg jiggling with impatience, feet tap-tap-tapping on the tile.

"Hey," he says, and his voice is too soft for who he is, for the body he's in, the personality he's made. Richie would never talk like this, not even at three-thirty in the morning when the rest of the world is asleep. Richie _would_, it seems, talk like this when Eddie's standing before him, looking like that, looking like—like—whatever it is, he can't put a finger on it, but it reminds him of something. Reminds him of a time when everything was this, when it was scary, and bleak, and he'd wanted to shield Eddie from everything, and—it doesn't matter. What matters is he's a goddamn idiot and he may throw up, but those two things probably have nothing to do with each other.

He clears his throat again—maybe he can pull off having a cold or a cough or something—and smiles at him. He feels it in his face that it's too much teeth and most likely insincere, which... it wasn't really his intention, but.

Eddie blinks, brow quirks.

"As much as I love staring at you," Richie says, "I love sleeping more. You plan on talking or can I get back to it?" It thrusts a thumb behind him like that explains it all.

Eddie swallows and it looks like it hurts. Richie wants to reach out, to touch him, but he doesn't. He's always like that: always wanted to be close to Eddie, but he can't be, that's kind of—it's weird, it's not—he just doesn't. He digs his nails into his palm, his hip into the doorframe. Makes himself unmovable.

"Do you remember," Eddie starts. Stops. Does not continue.

"Do I remember what my bed feels like?" Richie asks. "Not really. I can feel myself forgetting."

"Fuck off," Eddie snaps. "Do you remember when I'd—the nightmares I'd—do you remember them?"

"Which ones? You always have nightmares."

"Shut up, I do not _always—"_

Richie frowns.

His facial expression is so loud Eddie feels the need to be sharp with him. "I don't!" he defends. "At least not _always. _Will you—will you stop looking at me like that?"

"Nah," says Richie. It's cute when Eddie gets worked up.

"_Nah_?" Eddie repeats. "Whaddya mean _nah_?"

"I mean _nah_, I'm not gonna stop looking at you like that," Richie answers. What comes next is a betrayal of his own mouth, his body against him. "I just told you I like looking at you."

In the dim light of moon, of the stars—which is something else, poetry he could write if he knew fucking how, with the way it made Eddie look—he sees Eddie's skin flush. It's not much but it's enough for someone to notice, if they look at him as often as Richie does. It's right there: in the apples of his cheeks, the tips of his ears.

"Yeah, well." Eddie sounds strangled. "Don't look at me like I'm an idiot, maybe."

Richie grins. "How else would I look at you?"

"I don't—I don't—" Eddie answers, flustered. "I don't _know_. Look at me like you like me or something, not like I'm a—"

"Of course I like you, Eds," Richie says. "I like you the most."

"Okay, well, if you like me the most, why am I still standing out here?" Eddie demands. "It's cold."

"You never asked to come in," says Richie.

"I'm supposed to _ask _now?" Eddie asks. "To be let in this house. _Your _house. I have to _ask_."

Richie nods once, all dignified and proper. "I don't just let every boy who comes knockin' in the dead of night into my home. You think I'm some kind of floozy?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Eddie mutters. "What a stupid..." He twists on his heel; he gets one foot on the porch step before Richie calls back out, heart in his throat, suddenly startled by the thought of Eddie just—of him _leaving_.

"Where are you going?"

"Back home, obviously," answers Eddie. "This was dumb. I'll see you at school."

"No, wait." The words are torn from Richie before he can think better of it, before he can get a handle on himself. He thinks maybe he's being possessed, has lost control of his body. "You don't... shit, Eds, it's gotta be like—of course you can come in, dipshit."

Eddie turns back around, the line of his shoulders stiff and hefted up to his ears. The tension running through him is obvious and brutual and Richie feels a little bad for teasing him so much. Sort of. He's not the type to feel guilty over things like that, not even with Eddie. He doesn't care, not usually, but looking at Eddie now...

His arm moves on its own—he doesn't tell it to, at least—and he offers a hand out, fingertips ghosting the skin of Eddie's elbow. "Come on," he says. "Do you want... do you want—uh, tea?"

"_Tea_?" Eddie returns, enunciating it like he's never heard the word before. "Do I want—are you _eighty_?"

"No." Richie thinks about pulling his arm back. Doesn't. Wraps his fingers around his forearm. Eddie's skin is cold, covered in goosebumps. That's the only reason his thumb brushes back and forth against them, just to warm him up. "Are you?" he asks stupidly, eager to fill the silence.

Eddie stares—at the hand, not the face—and licks his lower lip. Then he bats it away, slips past Richie, and heads upstairs.

Richie is frozen in his doorway, gaze caught on the bike ditched on his front lawn. The wheel and the pedal are still in motion, almost as if Eddie had not even stopped properly before he jumped off, letting it clatter to the ground. The handlebar is no doubt covered in dirt. Eddie hates dirt. Richie moves forward, away from the house, goes to bring the bike upright.

He takes the hem of his shirt, wraps it around the handlebars, scrubs until the gray fabric is darkened to black, until the rubber is the same faded green it's been for years. Eddie cleans it meticulously, painstakingly—Richie has watched him before, bored to death with the intricacies of it—but he's never managed to fight off the long-lasting effects of time. Richie pushes it along his walkway, wiping the seat as he goes, palm brushing rough there, and is toeing at the kickstand when Eddie's voice, fast and sharp, makes him jump.

"What are you doing," he says. It's not a question, kind of an observance. Almost like he didn't mean to say it aloud.

Richie lets go of the bike, balancing by the steps, shoves his hands in his pockets. He'll have to wash them if Eddie's here. Wash them more than usual. Maybe twice, just to be safe. "My mom would hate if I just left the bike like that," he tells him.

"She wouldn't notice," Eddie says, "and if she did, she'd hate that I was here in the first place, not that."

"No, she wouldn't," Richie replies. "She likes you."

"Right, and my mom definitely won't call the police if she finds out I'm not in bed right now." Eddie tilts his head. "Are you coming? There's no point in staying over if I can't steal all your blankets while you're already under them."

Richie swallows, squints—he doesn't have his glasses on, he realizes belatedly; he can't see for shit, but he can see all of Eddie, for some reason, like he's etched in his brain, like he doesn't need to be looking at him to _see _him—and catches the way Eddie's hair is all rumpled on one side, right above his ear. It's a mess.

Richie wants to touch, wants to untangle it, but knows he shouldn't.

"Be right there," he says. "Needa wash my hands." He pulls them out of his pockets, holds them out. There's no tangible proof they aren't clean, but he can feel it, lingering on his skin. "Dirty."

"It's four in the morning," Eddie tells him, certain like he's looked at a clock.

"Glad you learned how to tell time," Richie retorts. "Unfortunate you don't know how to keep your bike upright or clean, given who you are as a person." He blinks away his stupor and stomps up the stairs, making sure to whack into Eddie as he does. "Whoops," he says, "didn't see you there."

Eddie kicks the back of his calf.

Richie ignores it—ignores it because Eddie's taken his sneakers off. He can see them placed nicely in the corner, where the rest of the shoes are. Ignores it because he can feel his socks and, through them, his toes. He's certain there's an imprint there, beneath his pajamas: half a foot seared into his skin, branding him for life. That's the only logical explanation for the warmth searing up his body, replacing the chill, filling him up.

He turns into the bathroom. Eddie follows, perches on the toilet seat. He's drawn his knees to his chest, balances his chin atop them.

"Are you really washing your hands?" he asks.

"What does it look like?" says Richie. He runs the water, lathers up the soap. Once they're clean, he does it again, remembering how they taught them when they were younger, how important it is to wash your hands before you eat, after you eat, after you go outside, blah, blah, _blah_.

All the while, Eddie watches him. "Why?"

Richie unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth, wants to say _What do you mean why, idiot_, but actually says, "Because you're here."

Eddie wrinkles his nose, not finding it as endearing as the butterflies in Richie's stomach do. "Because _I'm _here? You don't wash your hands regularly?"

Richie sighs loudly, flapping his wet fingers in Eddie's face instead of drying them off. He squeaks. "Like you're going to want to get in my bed if I haven't been properly sanitized. I touched _dirt_," he retorts coolly, particularly mesmerized by the droplet of water making the slow descent down the curve of Eddie's cheekbone. Richie flicks it, the drop, then his cheek, then uses Eddie's hair, already messy, as a towel.

It's enough to calm the desire that is surging against his bones, coursing through his veins. Touching Eddie normally tamps that down, even if it's not how he wants to touch him, and _that _is a whole other thing to worry about—if he's even concerned about it in the first place. He's not. He'd been when he was thirteen, had that whole crisis for the last half of seventh grade, and entered eighth a completely different person.

Most of that summer's a blur in his mind, but what remains is enough: He's always been drawn to Eddie—Eddie is the only one he'll share ice cream with even if it's a boring flavor, share a bed with without complaining, follow his annoying idiosyncrasies as if they were his own. He loves him, he knows that; he's always loved Eddie. The only difference now is that he wants to kiss him. He loves Eddie and he wants to kiss him. Sometimes that is particularly jarring. Sometimes it is a content thought, a thing that makes him up, a piece of the puzzle that is Richie Tozier: his hair, his glasses, his crude jokes, Trashmouth, wanting to kiss Eddie. Without it, he would not be complete.

Today is one of those days. He's not too bothered by its existence. It's the weight of its yearning that he can't really take, the way his mind transforms Eddie into something else in the early morning that makes him pause. He could do it, he thinks, but better not: kissing is gross and full of germs and swapping spit is something Eddie has never been interested in.

So Richie tugs on his hair a little too tightly instead, laughs when Eddie slaps him, and says, "All clean!"

"You know," Eddie says, shoving him, "if it's a question of sanitation, you should also wash your sheets."

"I'm but a boy," Richie replies. "You're the one who showed up without calling. I couldn't exactly prepare my room for you, could I?"

Eddie peers up at him, curious and cute, and asks, "Do you?"

"Wash my sheets? Yes. I'm not a monster."

"I meant." Eddie wets his lips. "Prepare your room for me."

"No," says Richie. "It's just normally laundry day when you sleep over."

Eddie squints, but doesn't say anything else. Richie wonders if he can detect his lie, if he can feel it. He leaves it, if he notices, and pushes past Richie again. Richie follows this time, watches from the hall as Eddie throws himself on the bed.

He refuses to act weird, refuses to keep just _staring_, and copies him. The clock on his nightstand reads four-fifteen, the numbers red and square. Richie feels too big for his own bed with Eddie there, lanky and long and too much. He feels like maybe he'd fit better if he just—if he turned, twisted… if he _curled_ himself up around him, which—

They've done that before.

They wake up sometimes—one or the other, for various reasons—to find Eddie's leg twisted between Richie's, his head buried between his shoulder blades, warm and comforting, arms wrapped around Richie's middle like he's hugging him. Other times, Eddie is wrapped up in Richie, nose pressed against his collarbone or his throat, hand fisting his shirt. Those are the times when Richie's heart is in his throat, beating a staccato so hard it hurts. It doesn't matter what they were doing: reading comics, eating junk food that made Eddie's teeth feel weird, talking shit to each other about each other—they always ended up in a pile of limbs, unsure where Eddie ended and Richie began.

When Richie exhales and turns his head, then his body, slow and steady, Eddie is already looking at him. One side of his face is smushed into the pillow, but his eyes are bright. Richie pokes the little dimple in his cheek.

"Why'd you come here?" he asks. "I thought you didn't get nightmares anymore. Not since you stopped taking all that fucking medication."

"I wasn't really taking anything," Eddie says. "Remember? They were all fake because my mom thought I'd drop dead at any moment."

Richie nods, then remembers. "_Gazebos_," he tells him gleefully, laughing. "Isn't that what you called them? It's placebos, but you said gazebos because you were twelve and stu—"

"Shut up," Eddie orders, pressing his hand over Richie's mouth. "Shutupshutupshutup."

"I said_ one_ thing," Richie replies, words muffled.

"And I hated it," snaps Eddie. "You talk so much. Do you even hear what you're saying half the time?"

"I'm not even talking right now!" defends Richie, but he is, in fact, talking right now. "I'm being _nice_, I'm _listening_, I am expressing _concern_—"

"Making fun of me is not _expressing concern_," Eddie says. "You're being weird, and I don't like it. Do something stupid instead."

"What do you mean this is weird and you don't like it? You think _I _like it? You used the walkie talkie system we haven't touched since we were, what, _ten_, to tell me to let you in. That's concerning! Why do you still have that?"

"Why do _you_?" Eddie retorts. "Better yet: why do you keep it charged?"

Richie shrugs. "My dad does," he tells him. "Buys batteries for it. He's weird."

Eddie does that thing again, where he stares at him, but he doesn't know what Richie's dad does or does not do. He can't possibly know this is also a lie, a bald-faced one at that, but it's better than saying the truth. _You might need me. I don't want to not be there if you do._

"Liar," says Eddie, and then he pulls the comforter up and over his head, hiding himself from view.

Richie goes to tug it back down but stops when Eddie hooks his foot around his ankle. He looks down, moves his arm. Gives his foot a quick squeeze. Eddie kicks him.

"I had…" Eddie's voice is muffled. "Are you afraid of clowns, or am I?"

Richie blinks. "Why would I be afraid of clowns?"

"I feel like you told me that once," says Eddie. "I don't think it matters. I had a dream about a clown, and I guess… I don't like clowns."

"Okay." Richie falls onto his back. His jostling removes Eddie's foot from his ankle, but it is only for a moment. Eddie kicks out, reaching for him, pulls Richie's leg against his until he's flush against his side. His heart rate accelerates, Richie's does, and he's confused by the—it's _fear_, he thinks, that he's feeling, not the usual triple-skip-double-skip thing his heart does when Eddie gets too close and he's too tired to pretend it means nothing to him. "What," he manages, feeling like his tongue is too big for his mouth, "happened with the clown?" He feels the need to specify, "In your dream," and notices his voice is shaking.

Maybe he is scared of clowns. That's a new one.

"Oh, the usual," says Eddie, forcibly airy, like he normally comes to Richie's at this hour to discuss clown nightmares. "He was being all murderous and, like, other psychotic clown things."

Eddie is a blur—that lump is a blur—and Richie's head hurts from squinting; he sits up, assuming Eddie will keep talking, to grab his glasses from the side table. They're perched on a textbook he's never opened.

Eddie stops short when he moves and his hand shoots out from under his blanket cocoon. Wraps around Richie's forearm. Holds tight. "Don't."

"I can't see," Richie says.

But Eddie tugs and tugs, hardly giving Richie any room, and he relents. Richie stretches his arm out farther than he's ever had, brushes his fingers along the frames, pulls them close with his middle. He catches them before they can hit the ground, wrestles them on his face.

It's then that he realizes how dark it is in this room, how he can hardly make out the street outside—the light out there is dim, a sorry excuse for illumination. The weak rays make the shadows of the trees longer, the shapes sinister and eerie. Richie watches them unfold, imagines seeing shit in them now, in the safety of his room, of his bed, and breathes sharply through his nose. Eddie doesn't like the dark, thrives in summer and sunshine and places where things can't _hide_, but he came here. He dreamt of a killer clown, woke up, and thought, _I should go to Richie's. I should get on my bike and ride to Richie's. In the dark. That I don't like. I should go to Richie's. _

Richie pulls the blanket off his face, looks down at him, needs to know more about this nightmare. "What else happened?"

Eddie shakes his head.

"Eds," Richie whispers.

Eddie sucks his lower lip into his mouth. "That's what he called me," he mumbles. "It was like... it was like he knew me. He, uh. He _missed _me, he said. He wanted me to come back. He wanted to play. Said no one wanted to play with him anymore, but he knew I would. If only I would go to him."

His eyes dart to Richie's, big and weary, and his gaze roams like he can't get enough of him, like he can't fathom he's there. He's been looking at Richie like that this whole time, like Richie is all smoke and mirrors, something that will disappear if he touches. And he's touched Eddie multiple times tonight; Eddie's even grabbed him, yet he still doesn't know if he's there or not.

Richie has all these words for the clown nightmare, you know, like, _it's not real, it's just a dumb clown, they're stupid, why'd you be afraid of them anyways_, but they get caught in his throat. He can only take his hands and hold Eddie's cheeks, making eye contact that quite frankly makes him nervous. Makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"Why would he think you'd go to him?"

Eddie gnaws at his lip again, brow furrowed. He sighs a little, and something in his eye changes. Richie tries to place it, can't put a name on it, can't do much of anything except gasp when Eddie traces his mouth, Richie's mouth, with a shaky finger.

"He had you," Eddie says softly.

"See? There you go," Richie replies, "that's how you know it's not real. You wouldn't go anywhere you didn't want go just for me."

"I'd go," Eddie says strongly. "In the dream, I went."

"You went," Richie repeats. "A clown clearly wanted to kill you and you went anyway. Why'd you do that?"

Eddie sighs again and he even—he rolls his eyes. Just a little. Just _enough. _"Why?" he repeats, irritated. "Because I... because—you're not subtle, Richie."

"Of course not, I'm fucking worried about you," Richie retorts. "I'm not going to be subtle about—"

"You're not listening to me," snaps Eddie.

"I am listening to you!"

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I'm hearing everything you're saying—"

"Okay, but you're not _listening_."

"I just said—"

"There's a difference between hearing me and listening to me, and I sound like my mother right know, _Jesus Christ—"_

"You do," agrees Richie, "and I know that because I'm listening to you."

Eddie groans, loud and annoyed, and tries to whack Richie's hands off his face. Richie only holds tighter. "You're not," he snaps, giving up. "You're only hearing the words."

"Maybe if you explained this instead of just repeating yourself, I'd understand how you came to this _entirely incorrect _conclusion."

Even in the dark, Eddie's cheeks are noticeably flushed beneath Eddie's hands, the kind of ruddy red that reminds Richie of brick walls and that one time he fell off his bike and cut open his knee. It's a good look for Eddie, he thinks. It makes him look messy. He's always so put together.

"I'm saying that I would go wherever the clown told me to go if he had you," Eddie tells him. "I am saying that and that's all you are hearing but if you would just shut up and _listen _you would know that I would go anywhere if you were there because"—there's a brief moment where he pauses, not to hesitate but to breathe—"I love you."

Richie has whiplash from the speed of Eddie's words, so many of them and so quickly said, a slur of half-insult, half-explanation, and he blinks. Tries to piece them all together, the haze of being tired and worried and confused that Eddie is still touching his mouth—a thumb beneath his bottom lip, the rest of his fingers holding his chin—overwhelms him. Makes it hard to concentrate. When he realizes what Eddie's said, he thinks maybe his hands are shaking where they're on his cheeks. He can count every individual eyelash framing those of eyes of his, determined and open and _honest. _

And Richie says, like a dumbass, "Of course you do. We're best friends."

"For _fuck's _sake, Rich," Eddie says. "You're such a shithead."

"I'm a—I'm _what_?"

"Still not listening," Eddie mumbles, and then adds, "Whatever, it's fine."

"What is fine? What do you mean I'm not listening, I heard you, I heard everything you said, you said it really fast."

Eddie exhales, loud and annoyed, and lifts his head, his nose brushing against Richie's. "You're a piece of shit," he says, and he kisses him.

Richie panics for approximately two-point-eight seconds—it's just enough time to wonder if he'd brushed his teeth before he fell asleep—and it's gone, worry the last thing on his mind. He finagles his position so he's not awkwardly sitting next to Eddie, hands on his face. Makes it so he's hovering over him, knee between his legs, hands still on his face. Eddie tastes like sleep and desperation, whatever those things taste like—odd that Richie can distinguish them when they aren't real flavors—and the mint of his toothpaste, distant and fleeting, leftover from hours ago. He slants his mouth, tilts his head, deepens the kiss. Tries to control the shudder of his body when Eddie slides his hands under his shirt, grabs at the skin of his sides, his stomach, all the way up to his shoulders, frantic and wild, like he's trying to commit Richie to memory by touch alone.

"Wait," Richie mumbles against his mouth. Eddie makes a loud keening noise, upset. "Did you call me a piece of shit?"

"Yes," Eddie answers, breathless. He tugs on Richie's collar. "I won't take it back."

"You're—you're insulting me," says Richie, "and kissing me at the same time?"

"Yes, that's how our relationship is." Eddie's impatient. "Do you want me to not, and, like, write sonnets about your eyes? I am _failing_ English."

Richie considers this, considers how he'd had the fleeting thought of writing poetry about the moonlight cutting across Eddie's face. How hard could it be to write a poem if he liked the subject? Richie says, "Yes, please."

"Fine," Eddie says. "I'll talk to Ben."

"Ben?"

"Ben is not failing English," supplies Eddie. He slips his fingers into Richie's hair next, feels the texture, the weight of it. Rubs his knuckle into the scalp, watches Richie's face.

Richie stares back, unable to focus on anything. His brain seems to be off, or malfunctioning, but he's content to look at Eddie and that little groove between his brows that means he's really concentrating.

"What's Ben gonna do?" he asks eventually, when the silence twists and extends too far for his liking. "Compare me to fire? _January embers._" He snickers.

Eddie pulls his hair once, in warning. "Shut up," he snaps, "or I'll write about your stupid crooked nose."

"You like my nose," Richie says.

"No, I hate it. It's always broken."

"You broke it once, if I remember."

"Yeah, because you wouldn't stop talking," replies Eddie. "You always had something to say, and you were always so mean to me. I didn't think you liked me, and we just hung out because we had to. Because of Bill."

Richie laughs and Eddie shoots him a look, annoyed and self-conscious and a bit worried. He presses his mouth into a line, but Richie can still see the way he swallows—hard, like he's said too much and regrets it. "I was always mean to people I liked," he says. "I wanted your attention, so I was mean to you. I liked you. I like you."

"Weird way to show it," Eddie mutters.

"Crushes are weird," Richie says. "Back then I didn't want you to give your attention to anyone else. Sometimes I would sit next to you and think _look at me _until you did. Sometimes you'd smile at me and sometimes you'd punch me. It was nice either way. It meant that you were thinking of me, and that's all I wanted, because I was always thinking about you."

Eddie's voice is quiet when he says, "I think about you all the time."

"I guess we should be glad you had that nightmare then," Richie jokes. "Where can we send a thank you card to your clown? We'd be dancing around this forever without him."

The words are playful, but they leave a bitter taste in his mouth, and for a brief moment he wants to take them back. Doesn't want to let the clown know he's looking for him, even though he's not real, and he can't hear Richie, and he's not really trying to find him. He blinks and his ears are ringing and he hears Eddie screaming but Eddie isn't screaming, Eddie is pressing his mouth to his again. He thinks, though, before falling into the kiss, that he knows exactly where the clown is. He could go there right now if he wanted, just sit up, leave his house, go down the street—

Eddie bites his lip. "Hey," he says. "Pay attention to me."

"Mm," Richie mumbles, "always," and just like that, the thought is gone, replaced with Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

"One more thing," Eddie begins, curling up into him, "don't go dying on me."

"That happened too?"

Eddie nods. "I watched it happen. Right here." He presses his palm to the middle of Richie's chest, then moves it up to his heart to feel it beating.

Richie runs his fingers through Eddie's hair, finally able to fix the mussy part by his ear. "I wouldn't count on that happening," he tells him. "I love you too much to even think about being separated from you."

Eddie smiles against him, Richie feels it, and tucks his head under his chin. He hears Eddie fall asleep, breathing shallow and slow, and resolves himself to stay up until his alarm goes off.

It doesn't work.

When they wake the next morning, well after Richie's alarm, rays of sun beating down on them from the window, they're tangled up together. Eddie's got his fingers wrapped around the skin above Richie's hipbone, and Richie has a mouthful of his hair on his tongue, nose pressed into the top of Eddie's head.

"Hi," says Eddie. "We're late for school."

"Fuck school," Richie says. His voice is raspy, full of sleep. "How are... you had a bad dream, right? How are you?"

"M'fine," Eddie answers. "Better."

Richie wracks his brain. "What was it about? I don't remember—"

"Me either," says Eddie. "It was probably just a regular nightmare or something. It doesn't matter."

Richie wrestles away from Eddie to look him straight-on. His face hurts, the side smushed into the pillow aching; there's probably an imprint of his glasses by his eye. He hates when he falls asleep with them on. "Are you sure?" he asks. "I distinctly remember you being... you were not alright."

"Yeah, well." Eddie shrugs. "I'm better now that I'm with you."

"The fuck was that," Richie comments plaintively. "I thought we were the kind of couple that insulted each other."

Eddie huffs. "You're the worst, Richie, I can't believe I even like you. What a waste."

Richie beams. "That's better," he says. "Can't have people thinking we're like those other people, like—like—Sally and—"

"Ew, like Sally and Dave?" Eddie finishes for him. "Why would you even suggest that? They're gross. We would never. There's a thing called self-respect and we have it, they don't. I can't believe you. Also we're a couple? Since when?"

"We've been a couple since we were kids, Eds. Face it. We were destined."

"A couple of idiots, maybe," Eddie replies.

Richie snorts. "And yet here you are: all cozy in my bed, which you took over at, like, four in the morning, and you told me you love me, and that you'd go anywhere I was—"

Eddie pinches him. "Be quiet. You talk too much."

Richie goes to make a scene of closing his mouth, then thinks better of it. Instead he smiles, even bigger than before. "Make me."

Eddie deadpans, wrinkles his nose, pushes himself onto his elbow. Richie waits for the inevitable comment about germs or morning breath or something like that, but it never comes. As Eddie's face gets closer, so close he can only use one eye to see him, he blurts, "I haven't brushed my teeth. I don't think I brushed them before I fell asleep the first time either," just because it is important Eddie knows this.

"Okay," Eddie says. "I haven't either. Now pleeeease"—his eyes have a multitude of colors in them, Richie has never noticed—"be"—his lips are warm and kind of chapped—"quiet."

"As you wish," Richie mumbles.

He doesn't think he'll ever get over how Eddie's mouth feels against his. Doesn't think he'll ever get over what it feels like to get this, what he's wanted for what feels like forever. Maybe he should thank whatever sent Eddie that nightmare. Without it, he'd be sitting in class right now, probably staring at the back of Eddie's head, Stan shooting him looks and elbowing him when the teacher noticed he wasn't paying attention.

So Richie thinks, _Thanks, I owe you_, and lets himself fall deeper.


End file.
